120 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



sunlight seemed dusk, and the dawn but as night, 

 yet clung to her little plant, whose glory was 

 that it was of no use whatsoever, but in months 

 to come would be yellow, and would smell. 



Farther dow^n river, in the small hamlets of 

 the bovianders — the people of mixed blood — the 

 practical was still necessity, but almost every 

 thatched and wattled hut had its swinging orchid 

 branch, and perhaps a hideous painted tub with 

 picketed rim, in which grew a golden splash of 

 croton. This ostentatious floweritis might fur- 

 nish a theme for a wholly new phase of the sub- 

 ject — for in almost every respect these people 

 are less worthy human beings — physically, men- 

 tally and morally — than the Indians. But one 

 cannot shift literary overalls for philosophical 

 paragraphs in mid-article, so let us take the lit- 

 tle river steamer down stream for forty miles 

 to the coast of British Guiana, and there see what 

 Nature herself does in the way of gardens. We 

 drive twenty miles or more before we reach 

 Georgetown, and the sides of the road are lined 

 for most of the distance with huts and hovels of 

 East Indian coolies and native Guiana negroes. 

 Some are made of boxes, others of bark, more 

 of thatch or rough-hewn boards and barrel staves. 



